Continuum treatment of electronic polarization effect

A continuum treatment of electronic polarization has been explored for in molecular mechanics simulations in implicit solvents. The dielectric constant for molecule interior is the only parameter in the continuum polarizable model. A value of 4 is found to yield optimal agreement with high-level ab initio quantum mechanical calculations for the tested molecular systems. Interestingly, its performance is not sensitive to the definition of molecular volume, in which the continuum electronic polarization is defined. In this model, quantum mechanical electrostatic field in different dielectric environments from vacuum, low-dielectric organic solvent, and water can be used simultaneously in atomic charge fitting to achieve consistent treatment of electrostatic interactions. The tests show that a single set of atomic charges can be used consistently in different dielectric environments and different molecular conformations, and the atomic charges transfer well from training monomers to tested dimers. The preliminary study gives us the hope of developing a continuum polarizable force field for more consistent simulations of proteins and nucleic acids in implicit solvents.